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Ordinary Mystic

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Select a Month November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019

November 2019

November 16, 2019

How to Be a Busy Parent and Pray Without Ceasing (Guest Post by Dani Kreutter)

“Absolute attention is prayer.” -Simone Weil “This is the first, wildest, and wisest thing I...

November 01, 2019

James Baldwin: Prophet of Love

James Baldwin is a prophet for troubled times. Baldwin was a black, gay, renowned novelist...

October 2019

October 25, 2019

On Christianity, God as Creativity, and the Arts

God is creativity. There’s something intrinsic to how God is conceived in the Bible that...

October 18, 2019

Joy and Justice Belong Together

Joy and justice, on the surface, do not seem to go together. Sometimes we might...

October 11, 2019

Beyond Light Supremacy: Let There be Light *and* Darkness

In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, God said, “Let there...

October 04, 2019

St. Francis and Loving Animals from “Other” to “Brother”

"It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper as...

September 2019

September 27, 2019

A Few Ordinary Mystics and a Declaration of Conscience (Guest Post by Roy Hoagland)

I love the moniker “ordinary mystic.” It resonates with me. In contrast, the word “mystic,”...

September 19, 2019

Retrieving Angels, or Why Faith Must be at Least as Strange as the Universe

The universe is strange. Here are a few paraphrased facts from an article I stumbled across: If you...

September 11, 2019

Silence is Not Empty, It is Filled With God (Guest Post by Rich Lewis)

I cannot imagine a better start to each day than a silent sit. When I...

September 02, 2019

Bless this Mess – Finally, A Must-Read Book about Progressive, Spiritual Parenting

The recent book Bless this Mess, the fruit of a team-up between pastor Molly Baskette...

August 2019

August 29, 2019

Prayer and Orgasm Have More in Common Than You Think (Guest Post by Kelly Deutsch)

I can’t remember the first time it happened in prayer. But I remember the first...

August 21, 2019

Hildegard of Bingen and Jesus on Living a Green Life

Hildegard of Bingen is, to use one writer's phrase (William Harmless), a mystical multimedia artist. She...

August 14, 2019

Hymn to the Cosmic Christ (Why Christ is Not Jesus’s Last Name)

Christ is not Jesus’s last name, as Richard Rohr says so powerfully in his latest book...

August 05, 2019

Marianne Williamson: A Mystic-Activist for President?

Marianne Williamson’s focus on love, and her new book "The Politics of Love," make her...

July 2019

July 29, 2019

The Contemplative and Active Lives are One

The Busy Trap has snagged many readers, I’m sure. I know it has snagged me. We...

July 26, 2019

When Art Disrupts Religion, by Philip Francis (Book Review)

Note: This article appears in SEEN Journal, Issue XVII, a publication of Christians in the Visual...

July 19, 2019

The Transforming Power of Contemplative Prayer

Why is contemplative prayer so needed in our time? What good does the mystic generate...

July 17, 2019

Dark Nights of the Soul: On John of the Cross, Jonah, and America

So dark the night!...I went with no one knowing upon a lover’s quest –Ah, the...

June 2019

June 07, 2019

Temples, Bodies, and Sacred Space

God wants to meet with us. It goes both ways: we want to meet with...

June 04, 2019

The Sacred Earth – Guest Post by Michael Allan

Is Earth a sacred place for us, given by the hand of the Creator -...

May 2019

May 29, 2019

Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove on Prayer, Action, and Unlearning Racism

Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove is a celebrated speaker, writer, and activist living in Durham, North Carolina. He...

May 22, 2019

Two Books to Help You Pray From Matthew Fox

Matthew Fox is a prolific writer, from whom creative spirituality passionately pours forth. His two...

May 15, 2019

Mary Magdalene: the Movie and the Myth

Last week, my local independent cinema in Williamstown, MA showed a one-time showing of the...

May 13, 2019

Praise, Wonder, and John Muir

Wonder is a word for a life saturated with praise. Regardless of belief system, we...

May 08, 2019

A Tale of Cosmic Revolution – (On Copernicus and Rheticus)

Note to the reader: This narrative is a summary in my own words of the...

May 01, 2019

The Monastery or the Beach?

I had it all planned out: a stay at a Trappist monastery planned for my...

April 2019

April 25, 2019

Wisdom is a Cosmic Woman

Wisdom is a woman. In Proverbs eight, she is a teacher walking the streets. She...

April 21, 2019

A Universal Resurrection

We grieved this week as Notre Dame Cathedral burned. Many hearts broke while reliving memories...

April 14, 2019

True and False Selves on Palm Sunday

I always have an uneasy feeling on Palm Sunday. I enjoy waving palms in church...

April 10, 2019

Shakers as American Mystics

The Shakers planted some of their most vital outposts of utopia near where I live,...